SILVERWARE success has been celebrated before the season even starts for the fourth successive year by Irvine Victoria.

The Westenders landed the Thomas Loach Memorial Trophy, defeating Cambuslang Rangers 3-1 in what was their first proper match of the pre-season - at Victoria Park on Saturday.

The annul match took on an added poignancy after Thomas's brother Bert, the former Vics chairman died in April.

Manager Stevie Wilson said: "I said to the new boys not to treat the game as a friendly, go into tackles and stamp their authority on the game. The fact that there was a trophy at stake gave the game a competitive edge and we have now won this four years running since I came in after losing it 11 times in a row before that. I was really pleased with the performance, our fitness levels are good and we were able to use all seven players on the bench. It was a good start but I'm not getting carried away.

The game was goalless at half-time. However 10 minutes after the break, 'Lang opened the scoring through John Gemmell.

From the resultant centre Callum Davidson played a ball down the left hand channel and Kevin Adam chased the ball down. A defender made a mistake, the goalie came out and Adam knocked the ball past him to make it 1-1.

Vics went 2-1 up in 72 minutes when Graeme Anderson burst down the left hand side and cut it back to Kieran Hollis who netted.

A minute from time Dylan Hamilton cut the ball back to Sean Mears who slotted home.

Meanwhile Vics have suffered a blow as Hollis suffered a dislocated shoulder and will be out for two weeks, along with strikers Kevin Adam and Eddie Ablorh, who are on holiday.

Vics are away to Port Glasgow tonight (Wednesday) and on Sunday Greenock are the visitors to Victoria Park.